First of all, what do I mean by talent? Secondly, what does determination look like? Thirdly, does your team of employees work together to build up the forces of talent and determination that makes it tough to compete with your organization? Are you currently building up this head of steam? If not, why not? The cards of this economy are in your favor to make it happen.
Let's cover the area of talent first. If you employ or hire people, what are you looking for in that effort? We live in interesting times. Our unemployed world has become a pool of desperate people trying to find some solid employment they can rely on to live a decent lifestyle. There are a lot of talented people in that pool. Many of those talented people have been placed there without regard to their high abilities. The cards of having good talent to choose from are falling strongly in the hands of the employer. How is that opportunity working out for your organization? Are you taking full advantage of improving your talent of staff?
These are very good times to make that kind of business improvement happen. However, one of my cautions is to refrain from being greedy. Be smart and respectful in that process or it can backfire quickly and cost you everything. These are good hiring times if you have some people that need the chance to improve or be remove. Every organization has some people that need some motivation to improve. Make sure you know who they are and make sure you have given them every opportunity to improve. When all else fails, you have a strong labor pool sitting right behind you waiting for a better chance to improve where they currently sit. Do not be afraid to use it. Just use it compassionately. Be smart, not greedy. There is a huge difference in how you approach these two efforts. They come with different sets of risks.
Many smart employers are using these difficult times of economy to ramp up their talent pools for quite a bit less than what it would normally cost. These tough times have provided that opportunity. Employers are strategically making the best of this bad economy situation. Juts pick up a classified paper with job listing opportunities and read what those employers are expecting to hire and how much they are willing to pay for the talent they are demanding. It is very clear that the employer is carrying the favor.
This last tough cycle in the overall economy has tipped the scale to the favor of the employer. Employers are asking to fill positions that are asking a lot of the future employee but the remuneration for those services is well under valued. Employers can easily offer less to get more talent. That is how the combination of a large supply in the labor pool and a low supply of available quality positions pans out. It is one of the few benefits a business can enjoy during tough economic times. This pattern is continuing to occur. Take advantage of this cycle. However, I will place a serious caution to the wind. Be respectful in those offers and make sure you allow the smart talent a fair return. Do not go overboard and squeeze out all you can get! That kind of thinking will add fuel and flame to your organizational developments. Stay away from greedy tendencies.
Good people with good talent are looking to find good work. The pool of talent is larger than usual. Finding plenty of employment opportunities to fill quality spaces is still limited by some of these tough economical times. The supply of talent is much larger than the available demand for work to place them. There are fewer jobs available to place the large crowds of good people waiting to find good work. The employer is sitting in a very good hiring position right now. This is a very good time to replace the people who are not part of your talent pool. This is a very good time to find better people who are more determined to do better work. The unemployed pool is filled with some very talented and some very determined people. Unfortunately, most of the really good ones are rather hidden. They are harder to find than what the employers had expected. Why is that?
I have a couple of good reasons I think are possible. First of all, I think it all comes down to how the displaced employee becomes more determined to find quality work. This kind of development can disguise the good ones from the bad ones. It begs the new question, what does determination look like? Those who are the most determined are the ones who make it known they want to go to work. They are the ones who capture your attention when you are looking to hire someone for a position you need to fill. They are the ones who do not play games about who they are. The determined ones are the ones who strip down clean and nearly beg for an opportunity to give you the most they have to give. The most determined ones are the ones who skip playing with posture and get down to being very willing to offer you everything they have. Those are the best ones that capture your views. Employers may not see these people the same way they see themselves, however. This is where the gap begins. This is what makes them hard to find.
Another good reason why talent and determination are hard to find is that leaders may discover some of these 'out-of-work' people in the pool have better abilities than the ones doing the hiring. The talent in the unemployed pool is sometimes greater than the people working to add staff during the hiring process. I have seen unemployed people go to interviews and actually possess stronger employment skills than the person conducting the interview. This is how the current economy is panning out. A lot of good talent is trying to find a quality place to become employed. There are fewer quality places to adequately place the amount of talent into the system of employment. This is where another gap begins. The people you hire to do the hiring do not easily let you know how good the real talent out there is. The real talent is too threatening to permit inside. Like I said earlier, be smart. Not everyone you employ operates cleanly. Nobody wants to hire their replacement. Insecurities are stronger than we might like to admit.
In fact, I have witnessed how business leaders have avoided hiring good talent because they themselves felt threatened by the potential skills of the applicant they faced. This is not an uncommon scenario. If you plan to develop a stronger and more competitive business team you will need to accept the higher talent on your team. If they possess greater skills than you, give them good direction. You do not need them working on your competitors team. This is basic stuff. This leads us to the earlier question, does your team of employees work together to build up the forces of talent and determination? Or does your team of employees feel too threatened to provide that kind of growth? Be careful, protectionism can easily limit your desire to grow. It can and it does.
Years ago I applied for a banking position in a corporate office of a banking institution. I was over-qualified to be considered for the position that was opened. However, I wanted to become a part of that banking organization and felt strongly that once I was able to get in I could move about to the place where I preferred to go. I had a method attached to my madness. During that interview, it was obvious that my qualifications were too high for the position they were looking to fill. It was so obvious that the person conducting the interview asked me point blank about my motives. She also decided to ask another one of her supervisors to come and sit in on the interview after we had discussed some stuff for about fifteen minutes or so. She asked for my permission to include her supervisor. The three of us had an interesting discussion.
During that short discussion the supervisor asked me point blank why she should hire someone who obviously had a desire to replace her in her work. I never said that during the interview. I never gave that kind of impression to either one of those employees conducting that interview. The first employee was surprised at her supervisors slant of conversation. I could see it in her face and body language. It was one of the most interesting interviews I have ever witnessed.
Sometimes we employ leaders who are terribly weighted down with insecurity about how they perform what they do. Most of the time, those insecure leaders do not immediately reveal how they truly feel. In fact, most of the time insecure leaders do a very good job of disguising how they truly feel in their insecurities about how they perform. Most business leaders do not see how they produce an insecure working environment. Most of the business leaders I know do not recognize how insecurity limits the level of 'good' determination that could be occurring in their organizations. That banking supervisor was determined alright, but not in such a 'good' way. This example is the kind of creative working pattern that ultimately limits how much a business model can grow. Business leaders employ people who run this kind of risk inside their growth models.
Talent and determination are slippery components to have a board your business ship. Make certain that you become very aware of how that talent is developing its will to protect what it is not doing. Make certain that you become very aware of how that talent is developing its will to protect what it is doing. These positions are very formidable concerns. A good business leader will pay attention to how these interesting dynamics work against their desire to build a strong growing business model. Sometimes the insecurity that occurs comes directly from the person in the mirror...the business leader.
As I mentioned above, are you currently building up this head of steam? Are you currently working to improve your talent pool and are you developing a stronger desire for them to excel? If not, why not? The cards of this economy are in your favor to make this kind of team development happen. Who is in your company way? Is it one of your banking supervisors, or is it someone like you who has not honestly peeked into a mirror lately?
Quality people with good integrity are on the hunt to find a great place to do their thing. The pool of people waiting for this to happen is very strong. Make sure you are not denying them to become part of your future growing team. Make sure you are strong enough to feel secure having some good talent aboard your business ship. Be careful how you empower the people you employ. Make sure they are not insecure enough to taint the talent pool enough to keep the good ones away from your view. Above all, be very cautious how you fall prey to the lower budgeting opportunities this current market permits you to use as you try to attract better talent. The really smart ones know when they are being taken advantage of and your future with them will turn out sour. It can and does come back to bite you.
These are good times to strengthen your employment talent. These are good times to add more determination to the working culture of your business model. Make sure you fully comprehend how all of this stuff pans out and how you can hinder the process to achieve these patterns. Your competition may be kicking your fanny on this one right now. Do not assume they are blind to these opportunities. As the economy strengthens with time, as it always does, the team with the best players and most determination will grow to control the most. I hope your business model is one of those teams who 'gets it.'
Talent and determination is truly at your fingertips. The next few years will reveal how well you did during that opportunity to acquire.
Until next time...
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